After the Storm
by FlowrGrl77
Summary: This one I did earlier in the year. It takes place in Bayport, but still could be considered a bit AU as I have changed the family dynamic a bit. Again, a F&C romp (they are my faves!). Romance and drama. No real mystery here. Hope you like!
1. Chapter 1

**Hi All- This is a more recent work. I would like to thank Carly (Carlotta Valdez) for giving me much of the plot and story line to take and run with. There are a few other stories Carly and I are collaborating on for the future. My thanks to her for being a creative consultant! I also thank Cheryl for her kind words as well as Dawn. I promise Dawn I will think about pulling out a couple more of the 'oldies'. Also a kind thanks to those who have reviewed and PMd.**

* * *

Frank Hardy was sitting at his desk when the call came in. The late-fall storm that had been lingering just off the coast, heading toward Bayport, had made landfall. Because of the cliffs buffering the fishing town and tourist mecca, the moods of the mighty Atlantic didn't usually pose a huge threat.

This time, people were already dead.

And of the six detectives in the fifty-officer-strong Bayport police department, Frank was the only one in the office that Tuesday morning.

Detective Ramsey Miller, the closest thing he had to a partner, was out interviewing a family in Waverly whose toddler had been missing for more than a decade. Miller needed a DNA sample to compare against a database created from items found in a newly arrested pedophile's home. Miller was obsessed with finding every single victim, bringing the families justice. And with ruling out victims, as well.

Grabbing his coat, Frank bypassed the elevator, pushing through the door to the stairwell and trotted five floors down. Storms weren't under their jurisdiction. Investigating dead bodies was. Crafty bad guys used natural disasters to cover up knocking off people they wanted gone. They robbed and pilfered, too, but those crimes would be handled by the street cops.

The air was eerily still and thick as he stepped out into the unseasonably warm October weather, not at all indicative of damaging winds traveling at hurricane speed with eighty-mile-an-hour gusts. But the near darkness at ten o'clock on a Tuesday morning brought with it a sense of ominous foreboding. The humidity fogged his glasses and he wiped them as he walked.

Were the winds on their way? Or were they going to stick to the coast and give midtown a miss?

Pushing speed-dial buttons on his phone, he reached his younger brother, Joe, making certain that he and his family were aware of the storm and taking cover. His parents lived in the house he'd grown up in Bayport were both working on computers in the basement office, engaged in online fundraising for their various charities. Fenton Hardy, once a great detective, had retired to spend more time with his wife and grown children.

Finished with the first three speed-dial recipients in less than two minutes, Frank quickly called the person he was most worried about. Callie Shaw's office was close by—not in any more danger than the rest of them, but while she was fourth on his speed dial, she was first on his mind.

Callie—the woman whose kiss could take the edge off any bad day. He was listening to her personal voice mail by the time he made it to his unmarked dark sedan, parked behind the Bayport police department. In the car, he tried her office number. He was transferred to the receptionist at the non-profit social work agency where Callie, a case manager in family services, spent most of her life.

"She's out visiting a new family, Detective Hardy."

She couldn't give him any more information. Not who. Or why. He knew the ropes. Confidentiality was of utmost importance.

"She's not down by the docks, is she?"

He'd started his car and placed it in gear.

"The family is not eligible for flood protection, sir," the young woman told him. Which meant they lived down by the water. Her professionalism gave way to fear as she added, "Several of us told her not to go, but there was a baby involved and…"

"Call me as soon as you hear from her," Frank said as the girl's voice trailed off. "I'll be on my cell."

Dropping the phone on the seat beside him, Frank turned on his lights and his siren and sped out into the storm.

((()))

"Don't be afraid." She said with a calm expression.

"I'm not." The boy said blankly.

Callie Shaw maintained eye contact with the eleven-year-old boy, trying to stay calm as she mentally noted the filth in the two-room apartment, the stench surrounding them, the storm raging outside the cracked glass on the bare window.

"I'm here to help you, Damon."

She'd been sitting with the boy for over an hour. Attempting to gain his trust—to develop enough of a relationship to be able to help him.

"You ain't. You don't give a rat's ass 'bout me. You just want Kayla, and I ain't lettin' you have her." His face showed a trace of bitter defiance between the clouds of worry in his eyes.

The baby, perhaps recognizing her name, poked a finger up her big brother's nose. Damon didn't seem to notice. Continuing to rock the two-month-old infant, the boy jutted out his chin and took a step out and away from Callie. Winds blew against the building. A loud crack sounded just outside the door.

Fear emanated from him as he stared her down.

"We have to get out of here, Damon. There's a hurricane coming." She urged.

"We don't git hurricanes in October." Technically hurricane season didn't end until December 1. But this storm wasn't officially a hurricane.

"It's a storm with winds as strong as a hurricane and it has the potential to do the same amount of damage."

She'd listened to the radio all the way over. Everyone thought the eye of the storm was going to pass them by. In spite of the fact that the children had been alone, abandoned by their mother, for three days, the baby was clean. She looked well-fed. But they could all die if they didn't get out of there.

"I ain't goin' and neither is Kayla. You'll split us up and once she's in the system she won't have a chance in hell."

He wasn't _completely_ right. Kayla, a near-newborn, would be adopted in a heartbeat. But Damon would probably never see her again. There was nothing she could do about that. They had to leave. Pulling out her cell she intended to call Mason, the cop who was waiting for her outside in the squad car, to ask for his help in forcibly removing the children.

She had no service.

And when she went to the front door to signal him, She looked wide eyed and quickly closed it again, as though protecting Damon from seeing the uprooted tree, the smashed patrol car, was of utmost importance. The door latched, but she couldn't lock it. There was a gaping hole where the lock had been!

Officer Mason might still be alive. And if he was, he surely needed medical assistance. The street had been strangely empty. Where were the emergency personnel? Neighbors? She couldn't leave the kids. And she couldn't pick up Damon and the baby and carry them out.

Besides, where would they go? To the street? The officer in the car hadn't been safe there.

"I'll be right back," she said to the boy, even though it was completely clear that he didn't intend to go anywhere. Slipping out into the eerie grayness, she pushed forward against the wind and made her way down to the car. The tree lay diagonally across it. She hauled open the front passenger door. Mason, slumped against the steering wheel, was unresponsive. His legs were pinned by the tree. But he was breathing. Grabbing the microphone from the police radio, she gave the dispatcher a hurried update as to their location and his condition and then, knowing there was no more she could do, took one last look at the mercifully unconscious Officer Mason.

"Hang on, Mason! Help is coming!" She said and quickly headed back.

Did folks uptown know how badly they were being hit? No one had expected the storm to reach shore. Another burst of wind struck the side of the termite-infested wooden building as she leaned against the front door, forcing it to close, hoping the rickety latch would hold. Heart pounding, she found enough calm to say,

"You can't stay here, Damon. It's not safe." She pleaded.

She tried to reason with the small-boned, tough-skinned boy whose drug-addict mother had been arrested that morning at the end of a three-day binge in a seedy motel. The place was in a neighboring village, and she'd been with a dock worker who was new to town. "You have no money. No way to buy food and diapers for Kayla."

After her briefing on the case that morning, she'd opted to come in alone to get the boy. She'd thought keeping the police out of the picture was in Damon's best interests. That was before the storm hit.

"We been doin' just fine." The boy's look was hard with only the merest hint of uncertainty in those vivid blue eyes. Callie wondered how long he'd been virtually alone with the baby girl who appeared to be healthy—in spite of having been born to a user.

Wind hurled and glass broke. The window in the bedroom? Was the one in this room next? She had to get the kids to safety.

"Is there a basement in this place?" Callie asked with a bit of agitation.

"Just in the buildin' next door."

"Then we have to go there. Now."

"Uh-uh."

Damon had softened earlier when she'd asked him about Kayla. He liked to talk about his baby sister. While her gaze searched for any safe harbor at all, her mind scrambled for conversation that might lure the boy into a sense of cooperation.

"Your mom said Kayla's had her checkups. Is that right?" If they didn't leave immediately, the baby's health didn't matter. And neither did Damon's. Or hers.

"'Course. At the free clinic. I took her myself." Callie rolled her eyes. Why was she not surprised?

And the county clinic hadn't notified child protective services that a newborn was in the care of a young boy?

Damon said something else, but she couldn't hear him as the storm's intensity increased.

"Damon, we have to get out of here!" Fighting the instincts that told her to run, Callie listened to her training…to her heart…and knew that she would not desert these children. No matter what. Which meant she might only have a few minutes to get through to the boy. Or die with them. A burst of wind slammed the building so hard, she felt it shake. Diving for the boy, shielding the baby with her body, Callie wrapped her arms around Damon and shoved them toward the tiny bathroom in the center of the apartment. Pushing them into the tub, she climbed in with them, lay down and cradled the children against her. Kayla was crying. She couldn't worry about that at the moment.

"I lied to the doctor," Damon yelled, but she could hardly hear him.

"It's okay," Callie yelled back, praying silently for their protection. For the children, at least, to be saved.

"I told him Mom was sick with the flu. And when he said he had to see her, I called a girl I know next door to come and pretend to be her. She's been going with me to all of Kayla's checkups."

The storm raged. The baby cried. The boy yelled. And Callie thought about Frank Hardy. She'd never told him she loved him.

She wished she had.


	2. Chapter 2

It's clearly a storm-related accident." Frank, standing with the coroner inside the marina store, stared out at the potential crime scene down by the docks, hoping that the older couple whose RV had rolled over had never known what hit them. So far, they were the only reported casualties.

Sam Pawloski, Bayport's coroner, nodded. "Sorry to call you out in this weather, Detective," Jack, the street cop who'd met Frank at the scene, muttered. Jack was a new cop. Maybe still a bit excitable.

"At first glance, with the bodies in different places, it looked like we had a mess on our hands."

Their voices were raised to be heard over the sound of wind raging outside. So far that was all there was to the storm. Dangerously high winds. No rain. No thunder or lightning.

Just a hell of a lot of debris.

"You got the mess part right," Sam said.

The parking lot was filled with branches, bark, a sail, a couple of life vests, a few shingles, pieces of metal and trash, rope, a cardboard box and an empty beer case. Candy wrappers and paper litter skated across the pavement.

"I've seen worse," Manny, the weathered old marina owner and fish dealer, said from the counter behind them. "Good thing no one was out on the water."

"I hate to think how much damage there's going to be to the boats," Jack said, shaking his head.

Though he'd grown up in Bayport, Frank didn't know any of the fishermen personally. He knew _of_ one, though. Chris Talbot had been peripherally involved in one of Ramsey Miller's missing child cold cases the previous month. Talbot was now engaged to Emma Sanderson, sister to the long-missing toddler, Claire Sanderson.

Claire had been ruled out as a victim of Ramsey's newly arrested pedophile—but she was still missing.

"Which boat belongs to Chris Talbot?" Frank asked the curmudgeonly, leather-skinned man behind the counter.

"That one there." The man nodded toward the right side of the dock. "The _Son Catcher._ "

Not the newest boat on the block by any means.

"Looks like he's got it tied down tight." The fishing vessel was rocking fiercely.

"Chris is careful," Manny said, almost with pride, as if Talbot was his own son. "Used to be that boat was his whole life. Till he met himself a woman he cared about more. We didn't think that was ever going to happen."

Emma Sanderson.

"He's been talking to me about having a wedding down here at the docks over Thanksgiving. I told him he'd best be talking to his lady about that, but he says she wants it, too. Go figure."

Wondering if Ramsey knew about the upcoming nuptials, Frank was about to ask where, on the smelly fishing docks, a couple would have a wedding, when Jack's portable patrol radio sounded a call for help.

A cop had just been reported unconscious in a car outside a duplex a couple of blocks away. A woman, a social worker, was inside with two kids—one of whom was a baby. They didn't know if anyone inside was hurt. Emergency vehicles had been dispatched.

There was no reason for a detective to be on the scene. No reason to risk his life in the storm.

Frank tore out of the marina store, a force in the wind as he ran for his car.

 **((()))**

Funny, your life really did pass before your eyes when you faced death. Her mother's voice floated into that little bathroom, covering the screaming baby, the howling winds, the repeated pounding of a loose board against the house. "You're a good girl, Callie. Don't ever forget that."

 _Had_ she forgotten?

Her mind conjured up a picture of her father's smile, before he got sick, before they knew insurance wouldn't pay for the transplant that could save his life.

A huge boom brought Callie fully back to the cramped little bathtub, to the children beneath her, shielded by her body. If anything came down on them, she'd catch the brunt of it.

Something crashed in the next room.

"What was that?" Damon shouted, tears evident in his voice.

"The wind," Callie hollered back above the roar of the storm and baby Kayla's cries. At least the baby was no longer screaming.

She was pretty sure the roof had just fallen in on the room they'd been standing in moments before. Chances were she wasn't going to make it out alive.

She thought of Aunt Calista, after whom she'd been named. Her mother's twin sister. Before Calista's divorce, before her ex-husband had broken her trust, and her heart, before he'd taken all their money and run, she'd laughed a lot.

She lived with Callie's mother Bethanne in Florida now. The twins were older, quieter. But they had a group of friends. A comfortable life. Callie, had her own room in their home, which she visited often. She'd been there the previous month. Her mother and aunt were smiling again—particularly when she was with them.

They'd never thought less of Callie. Though they had to have known what she'd done. Who she'd been.

"You're a good girl, Callie. Don't ever forget that."

Her breath caught, her heart stopping, at the deafening crack that rent the ceiling above them, taking away their light—leaving them in a mostly dark, windowless room, lit only by shadows coming in through the doorway.

"Are we going to die?" Damon's arms clutched her neck, making it harder for her arms to sustain her weight against the sides of the tub. The tough little boy's eyes, as she glanced down at him, were wide and vulnerable and filled with terror.

"No!" she yelled, making sure he not only saw the word on her lips but heard it, too. He had to believe he was going to be fine. Belief might be the one savior Damon had left. "It just sounds bad," she added. "We're perfectly safe in here."

"I'm sorry I was mean to you."

"You weren't mean, Damon. You were scared. You're a good boy. A wonderful big brother…" She said forcing a smile in spite of the circumstances.

"You're a good girl, Callie. Don't ever forget that." He replied.

Another burst of wind hit the frail structure. Plaster rained down from the ceiling onto her back.

Her life seemed to flash before her. The stage was set. She was at work. Colorful lights filled her eyes while shame choked her throat. Or maybe it was the plaster. She was in costume. Which meant more naked than not. The wind blasted them.

It was her turn to go on.

Callie stepped up to the pole, holding it as she swung around, strutting her stuff for all of the eager, lascivious, staring men gazing down below.

She looked over the sea of men, but couldn't make out their faces as she squatted and twirled and thrust her star covered nipples forward.

And then there he was. One face in the crowd.

Frank.


	3. Chapter 3

There was nothing he could do but stand there, in a calm that was eerier than before the storm, and watch as rescue crews dug through the rubble that had once been an abandoned duplex on a block that housed mostly indigents. Two homes on the street were in shambles, belongings mixed in with drywall, nails and glass. Several cars had been damaged by falling branches. So far, no one was dead.

The home worst hit had been vacant.

The policeman, Officer Mason, who'd been inside the squad car in front of the other home—the duplex with two walls left standing over a pile of debris—was alive and conscious, on his way to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. They weren't sure they'd be able to save both his legs. Or that he'd ever walk again.

People, mostly in uniforms of various kinds, swarmed what was usually a deserted street. Frank stayed out of their way. And prayed.

Officials believed there were two children buried somewhere beneath the drywall and shingles just feet away from him. They said that case manager Callie Shaw was with them.

Frank hoped that while Officer Mason, who'd been the only other person on the block when the storm took its sudden turn, had been unconscious, Callie and the children had escaped to safety. He hoped they were huddled somewhere safe, keeping warm, drinking hot tea and waiting for the authorities to come get them.

He knew better. He _was_ the authorities. If there'd been a call reporting the appearance of these three, he'd have heard it.

Pacing, hands in the pockets of his gray dress slacks, he hunched inside the long dark unlined coat he'd pulled from his closet only hours before, and willed Callie to stay alive. He wasn't her next of kin. He wasn't anything official at all. He and Callie dated. Monogamously, on his part at least.

He assumed on her part, too. They'd never discussed it. Though they were together for years, they hadn't always been exclusive. They talked about life. Laughed at the same things. Discussed as much as they could about their individual cases.

Voices rose from workers digging through the piles of rubbish. Loud. Calling out. Had they found something? _Someone?_

"Can I get you anything, Detective?"

A uniformed beat cop, female, stopped in front of him.

"No, thanks," he said, shaking his head. "You all just do your jobs. Don't mind me."

"Holler if you need anything," she said, continuing toward the next group of waiting professionals. Everyone was there, ready to do their prospective jobs—depending on what emerged from the rubble. Dead bodies. Or live ones.

The road was roped off at both ends. Crowds of people had gathered behind the barricades. No one was allowed at the scene. Not even reporters.

He'd met Callie at a crime scene. A drug bust he'd been working on for months. A meth lab run by a husband-and-wife team who also happened to be the parents of five-and six-year-old boys. Frank was pretty certain that the couple were pawns in a bigger game—a gang expanding from Atlantic City. He hadn't been ready to bring them down. But social services had been called by the school, and Callie had gone in to take their kids away from them. Dad turned on her. Frank had arrived just as the paramedics were trying to talk Callie into a trip to the E.R. to be checked out.

She'd chosen to stay and talk to Frank. He'd never forget the blue eyes gazing up at him from the bruised and broken skin. There'd been no fear in them. Only resolution. She'd wanted to make sure that the man who'd backhanded her never got near his boys again. So far, he hadn't.

"We hear something!" an officer shouted.

Frank had no trouble making out the words as a burly, six-foot-tall man in coveralls turned from the wreckage. Suit and dress shoes be damned, he moved forward. Not to the center of the activity. He didn't know enough about refuse removal to be sure he wouldn't cause greater harm to the people trapped beneath. But he couldn't stand back, either.

Callie was somewhere in this pile of fallen building materials. She might be dead. And if she was, part of him was dead, too.

Sound dissipated. Sight blurred. Frank felt chilled to the bone as he realized how much Callie Shaw had come to mean to him.

Why hadn't he paid attention?

Why hadn't he done anything about it?

He rubbed his eyes, but the sense of being in a twilight zone didn't dissipate at all.

He and Callie both worked long hours. They were dedicated to their careers. He'd figured they had all the time in the world to take their relationship to the next level. The obvious one.

Now he might never get the chance.

Why his baby sister Jenny came to his mind as he stood there, helpless, he had no idea. Except that he hadn't been able to save her, either. Jenny was seldom mentioned within the family. Fenton and Laura had done so well with their sons, but their daughter was another subject entirely.

As far as he knew Jenny was fine. Working as a blackjack dealer in Atlantic City. She called now and then, but he hadn't seen her in years. At least she was no longer dancing.

No longer stripping.

He'd been a young officer the night his partner told him one of the other cops had seen his kid sister dancing at the new strip club in town. He'd punched his partner. And would have been disciplined if the guy hadn't lied to everyone about how he got the swollen jaw.

Frank had started tracking Jenny's whereabouts that same night. Right to the club. She was eighteen. Underage. As, he suspected, were most of the girls he'd seen onstage that night. And the only other night he'd been there. The night he and several of his fellow lawmen busted the place for every conceivable non-compliance issue he could find. The girls were all hauled in, though many of them were let go with warnings—Jenny being one of them. And ultimately the place had been closed. But Jenny hadn't thanked him. She hadn't settled down. She'd broken their parents' hearts and moved to Atlantic City to make big bucks from horny jerks who didn't give a damn about her. Until she'd found out she could make as much money dealing their cards.

"We've got something!"

Frank pressed forward with the surge of paramedics, officers and firemen. "It's a purse," he heard someone say. Followed by the voice of the female police officer who'd spoken to him earlier.

"It's hers," the woman called out. "The purse belongs to Callie Shaw."

Heart pounding, Frank stood there, still frozen. Waiting. He should have asked her to marry him.

"I definitely hear something," another male voice shouted. "Over there." A gloved hand pointed to the back of the lot, where large pieces of fallen drywall formed an A-shape beneath shingles and black roofing paper.

"It's a baby crying!"

She'd saved the baby. She would have wanted to save the baby.

Stomach churning, hands shaking when they'd never, ever been unsteady at a crime scene before, he tried to look at the scene as a professional. Except that there really wasn't any call for a detective. He was witness to a disaster, not a crime.

"Hey, man, I just heard."

The familiar male voice registered with Frank and turning to his right he saw fellow detective Ramsey Miller standing there.

"Have they found her?" Ramsey's voice was calm. Normal. His face showed no expression.

"Not yet."

"Then we'll wait."

Nothing else was said, but as the long minutes passed, Miller didn't budge from his position beside Frank.

"We've got the kid! He's in a bathtub! Alive!"

And then a few seconds later, another voice called, "The baby, too."

And the woman? Frank asked silently, not breathing. Because suddenly he couldn't.

"We've got her!" He heard the words a split second before he saw a man in yellow coveralls stand up with an obviously unconscious Callie Shaw draped over his arms. "They've got her," Ramsey's voice was grim.

"Let's go." He moved toward the rescue worker. Frank sped past him. He had to be there with her. No matter what.

Biting the inside of his lip, he strode with purpose toward that person who mattered most in his life. Whether or not he'd told Callie and the world, that woman was his…something. And…

"Frank?"

The limp head moved, only slightly, against the yellow material. But her eyes, those beautiful blue eyes, were wide open.

"I saw you," she said, through cracked, dry lips. And then she was out again.

"Ride with her." Ramsey motioned toward the back of the ambulance. "I'll see that your car's brought in."

Frank hadn't even thought about his car. The only thing on his mind, other than the extent of Callie's injuries, was asking her to be his wife.

He'd been given a second chance and he damn sure wasn't going to blow it.

((()))

Callie might or might not be a good girl, but she was a lucky one. At least that was how she saw it as she stood in her shower Thursday morning getting ready for work. Her boss had told her to take the rest of the week off. The cases piled up on her desk told her differently.

Those families needed her, and there was no reason she couldn't tend to them. She'd been buffeted by a storm, but she'd come through it with only bruises, a concussion and one night in the hospital for observation.

A night Frank Hardy had spent with her. He'd been the one to wake her every couple of hours that first night. To see that she had everything she wanted or needed. And he'd spent Wednesday night in her bed at home.

"Breakfast is ready," Frank's voice called out to her just as she stepped out of the shower and Callie warned herself not to get too attached to the idea of Frank Hardy by her side through life's daily trials.

They dated. That was all. He'd never once hinted at anything more.

He had his place. She had hers.

His attention since the storm was simply a matter of decency. Her family was in Florida and Frank was one of her closest friends—her only friend who lived alone and didn't have family to go home to every night.

Pulling on her thick white terry robe, she belted it at the waist, yanked the shower cap off, letting her long blonde hair tumble down her shoulders, and made her way out to the breakfast nook. She'd purchased the little two bedroom Cape Cod home a couple of years earlier for far too much money because it had a view of the Atlantic Ocean. In the distance, mind you, but still the ocean…

He'd found her place mats, set the table as she'd set it for him so many times in the past. Her favorite coffee mug—the one with the heart that had been given to her by a client on the girl's eighteenth birthday, celebrating the fact that she'd made it through the system and into adulthood—sat by her plate. He'd fixed omelets. Again, her favorite, although his version resembled scrambled eggs. There was toast, too.

She hadn't had much of an appetite since the storm.

"Ramsey called," Frank said as he held out her chair and then sat perpendicular to her, in the seat she always gave him when he was over. "He's been keeping track of Damon and Kayla as promised. The decision is made to try to keep them together. Assuming you can find a place for them. They're in a temporary foster home until you get back to work."

"I'm going in today."

He frowned. Which endeared him to her that much more. God, she loved this man.

Just as he was.

A man who walked his own walk. Who worked extremely long hours and lived alone.

"The doctor told you to take the rest of the week off."

"He also said there is nothing wrong with me. I won't go out on calls until Monday, but it's going to hurt me more sitting here thinking about all the cases on my desk than it will to be at my desk dealing with them."

He was still frowning and Callie covered his hand with hers. "I'm fine, Frank. And I give you my word, I won't leave the office, and I'll come home the second I start to feel tired or get a headache." A residual headache or two was to be expected after being conked on the head by a sheet of drywall.

He stared at her hard and then said, "I'm twenty-eight years old."

She blinked at the non sequitur. What had she missed? Had being hit on the head confused her more than she'd thought?

"I know."

His plate sat untouched before him, his silverware still on the table. Callie picked up her fork. Took a bite of egg and ham and cheese and onion that she didn't really want.

"Obviously I'm a late bloomer, or just plain dense when it comes to matters of the heart, but…I want you to marry me."

Swallowing, Callie gaped. She could see herself as if from afar, the same way she had during those horrifying minutes in the bathtub, protecting children she'd just met. Reality and dream melded together—her sitting at her kitchen table, watching everything around her, interspersing reality with longing. Creating a version of what life could be.

"I'm not doing this right, I know. I planned to take you out to the cliff this morning. I have roses in the freezer in your garage and with the ocean as my witness, I was going to get down on my knees and beg you to be my wife, after which we'd go to lunch at Chloe's…"

Her favorite seafood place. Seafood salad didn't sound bad.

"But if you're going to the office, that blows those plans, and I promised myself I wouldn't let another chance pass me by. I don't want you to spend another day without some kind of understanding between us. I want to have the right to take care of you, to hear your medical reports, be informed of—"

Callie shook her head. And he stopped talking.

"Slow down," she said. Her insides were belly flopping—she'd heard the term from an eleven-year-old boy a few years ago. It came back to her now. And it fit.

"You aren't going to tell me no, are you? Please marry me, sweetheart. My life is not complete without you and I want the world to know that. I'm sorry it took me too long to wake up, but I'm absolutely positive that marrying you is all that matters. Standing outside that pile of rubbish the other day, not knowing if you were dead or alive, all I could think about was the life I'd wasted, not living with you as my wife…"

Tears burned her eyes; emotion clogged her throat. She'd been waiting for some time to hear these words. She'd known she wanted to marry Frank Hardy a month after they'd met again. The man brought peace to her soul at the same time that he brought life and excitement to her heart. And what he did to her body…

But she wasn't like Frank. She couldn't just let the past go. Maybe it really didn't matter to him. Clearly, based on the life that had passed before her eyes when she'd been so sure she was going to die, the past…her past…was still clinging to her. Putting down her fork, Callie had an inane thought about the food going to waste, the effort he'd made to prepare breakfast going to waste. And she was outside herself again. Assessing the situation, knowing that by thinking about the food she was focusing on the mundane, the unthreatening.

A coping mechanism.

She took a deep breath. And another. She could do this. Frank had never required it of her. He'd never once asked her to talk about who she'd been the first time they'd met. That night at the strip club… He had to have recognized her, but he'd never once questioned her earlier choices, or shown any surprise that the second time they'd met she'd been a college graduate, a licensed social worker. He'd just accepted the new her. And through that acceptance, she'd finally begun to accept herself.

Or so she'd thought.

Until she'd lain in that bathtub and she was going to have to answer for her poor choices.

"Callie? What's going on? Do you feel okay?"

His voice sounded distant. But he was sitting right there. Holding her hand.

Holding her up. As always.

She didn't deserve this man.

But she loved him with her whole heart. And she'd do everything she possibly could to bring happiness to his life.

"Is it my job? Is that what's worrying you? I know it's hard being a cop's wife. The danger. The hours. It's why it took me so long to get to this point. I always figured marriage wasn't for me. But now…"

"I'm proud of the work you do, Frank. Don't ever apologize for it." The passion in her voice erupted from deep inside her, as though a long overburdoned floodgate had opened.

She'd put a lid on her past. But it hadn't been fastened down tightly enough. He still held her hand. She concentrated on the warm touch of his skin against hers as his larger fingers wrapped protectively around hers.

"I've made a good life for myself," she began. I work hard and contribute all I can to society. But after the past couple of days, I know that I can't keep pretending the past doesn't exist. Because it does. Inside me. It's part of me. And I can't marry you until we talk about it."

He was frowning again. And the confusion in his eyes made her heart pound. "The past? What are you talking about? The job you do…the kids you've helped? You save lives, Callie. Just look at that cup. It tells your story."

She'd helped a girl find her way out of anger and into an ability to open her heart to a loving foster mother.

She shook her head. "I'm talking about _before,_ Frank."

Her chest was so tight she could hardly pull air through her lungs. "About the first time we met."

"The day that bastard backhanded you? What the hell do you have to feel shame about there? You know as well as I do that…"

That night was the first time she'd seen Frank Hardy.

What? His words faded into the distance as horror filled every part of her being. Sick to her stomach, she stared at the cop who'd physically dragged her off the stage the night she'd been hauled to jail.

The night that had changed her life in so many ways.

The night that had been the last nail in her father's coffin.

"Callie?"

"You don't remember…"

"Remember what? I remember every detail of the day we met. Down to the fighting look on your face, the black eye that bastard gave you…"

Black eyes. The first time they'd met, she'd had on false eyelashes and enough makeup to change her from a vulnerable, modest virgin into the slut men paid to see.

It wasn't that he didn't remember. Or that he'd been able to put the past behind him.

He didn't know.

He didn't recognize her.

Frank Hardy, the man she was irrevocably in love with, the man she'd thought had given her back decency and self-respect, didn't even know who she was.


	4. Chapter 4

He should have waited. Holding on to Callie's hand, Frank sat at her kitchen table, their eggs congealing on the plates, and tried to be patient. And not panic.

He'd bungled the proposal. He got that. But surely he hadn't read her wrong—hadn't read _them_ wrong. The whole time she'd been in and out of consciousness she'd never asked for anyone but him.

Still, judging by the wide-eyed horror with which she was studying him, he'd missed something.

And then those beautiful blue eyes clouded over with pain.

"What is it?" he asked, leaning toward her, prepared to catch her if she fell. "Does your head hurt again?"

"My head is fine." Her words were delivered with strength. And derision? "You don't know who I am, do you?"

"What?" The doctor had given Frank his number. If she showed signs of confusion he was to call. "Of course I know who you are." But maybe she didn't. That would certainly explain the horrified expression. "You're Callie Shaw. A case manager with social services."

Was she bleeding on the brain? The neurologist had explained the danger, the signs to watch out for. He'd also said Callie's chances of experiencing any of them were minimal.

However, he'd told Frank to keep watch….

"I mean before. You don't remember."

She was scaring him.

"I guess I don't," he said, deciding it was best to play along, to see if her lapse was only momentary before he went into an all-out panic and called the emergency squad. If she was hemorrhaging, she could have a stroke. He'd listened carefully to every word the doctor had said when he'd released Callie into his care.

"That day, when we met at the scene of one of my worst experiences on the job was not the first time we met, Frank."

"It wasn't?"

She shook her head. But didn't waver at all. Or act the least bit like she was losing her faculties. On the contrary, she sounded completely, one hundred percent lucid.

Sitting back he met her gaze directly. And saw pain there. And conviction, too. If this woman was hallucinating, it was the most convincing case of confusion he'd ever encountered.

"When was the first time?" He had a pretty strong feeling that he didn't want to know.

"Several years ago."

He didn't think so. "Are you sure? I was still in uniform then. Maybe you're mistaking me for another cop."

Her smile was sad, and tinged with some emotion he didn't recognize. "I'm sure, Frank. I know it was you."

"I'd have remembered," he insisted.

"All this time….I thought you did remember."

"How could you think that? I would've mentioned if I'd seen you before." Shaking his head, he let go of her hand, sitting back. His instincts had saved his life more than once. And just then, they were telling him that something wasn't right. "You never mentioned it, either."

He was starting to get angry and knew that wasn't fair. But damn. Who did this? Who had a relationship with someone without bringing up something as significant as having met them before?

Racking his brain for any time in his life when he could possibly have seen this woman—and forgotten her—he drew a complete blank.

She clutched her robe closed at the neck, both elbows on the table, then sat up straight and said, "I didn't mention it because I thought you were showing me respect by not making an issue of it. I was taking your lead."

Taking his lead? When he hadn't known he was leading? Was the woman nuts?

Frank shrugged that off. Considering the bump Callie had taken to the head, he was eternally grateful that she was sane and capable of logic. No matter _what_ she was telling him.

He thought about what she'd said. About showing her respect. And not making an issue of whatever it was.

Sounded like she'd been in some kind of trouble.

"Did I catch you doing something wrong?" He'd pulled her over for speeding. That had to be it. Or maybe she'd had a broken taillight. Pray it wasn't drunk driving. He'd find it hard to believe she'd ever risked her life, and the lives of others in such an irresponsible way. But if she had, she'd spent the past years making up for the mistake. Learning from it. And…

"You could say that."

Tears filled her eyes and the sight was unusual enough that Frank leaned toward her again. Taking her hand. Tension tightened every nerve inside him and still, he wanted to help her. Protect her. Love her.

"Just tell me, sweetheart. Since I don't remember, it can't have been that big a deal. I know who you are now. And…I love you." Not quite the way he'd planned on making the first-time declaration.

And yet…completely fitting. Natural.

Her reaction shocked him. His strong, resilient, beautiful Callie started to cry in earnest. "I…love…you, too—" she hiccupped "—Frank."

He couldn't miss the fact that their mutual love was bringing her pain. Not joy.

"Tell me what's going on."

If she was on the run, if she'd done something he couldn't fix, he'd run with her. He knew how to hide. Because he knew how to find those who hid. Somehow he'd deal with it. Make it right. He just had to know….

"We met the night you busted The Strip Joint." With a deep breath Callie became someone else, in front of his eyes. Her tears stopped. Her gaze deadened. Even her posture changed. Her back straightened, and her arms closed in on herself. Her chin lifted. Almost as though she was daring him—or waiting for a painful blow.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't picture you. I don't recall you being there. Were you tending bar?"

The idea sickened him. His sweet, kind Callie exposed to the out-of-control sexual assholes men became in such establishments.

"You hauled me off the stage, Frank."

Like an avalanche hitting him, the truth played itself out in his mind. He distinctly remembered the night they'd busted the club. He'd only been inside the place once before, and just like that first evening, Jenny had been up on the stage when he and his fellow officers burst into the room. This time, another woman had been dancing with her, if you could call the near-naked sliding up and down those two poles dancing….

He'd had to get the first woman off the stage in order to reach his baby sister. He'd handed the woman off to his partner. The same guy he'd nailed in the jaw a few months before. A guy who'd moved to Boston years later.

He hadn't taken the time to get a good look at her—beyond the overlong eyelashes and overdone makeup. He'd figured she was about his sister's age. Had wondered if her parents were as heartbroken as his to have their little girl involved in such an emotionally and physically damaging business.

But thinking back, he saw a resemblance to the woman sitting in the soft terry robe at the breakfast he'd prepared.

He thought of Jenny.

Thought about the fact that he'd just asked a former stripper to marry him.

Did he know her at all?

What kind of men had she had before him? How many?

"You told me you were a virgin." Before they'd made love the first time. Had she lied?

Other times, too?

At least now he realized why Callie was the most incredible lover he'd ever had. She knew how to turn men on.

He felt played. Betrayed. Humiliated. Stupid as hell and—

"I _was_ a virgin. You're the only lover I've ever had. I danced, Frank. Nothing else."

"What about lap dances?" He'd never availed himself of the experience, but he knew guys who had. He knew what sometimes went on behind closed doors, too. Whether it was technically legal or not.

She shook her head. "Only onstage. That was part of my agreement with the owner. I never had to work the crowd one on one."

Had Jenny? He'd never asked. Truth was, he'd assumed the worst and hadn't wanted to know the details. He'd just wanted his baby sister out of there—so badly that from the first night he'd seen her onstage, he'd made it his personal mission to track every minor infraction made by The Strip Joint until he could shut the place down.

Had Callie known Jenny? He'd told her he had a younger sister who'd left home and never come back to Bayport. A girl who'd rebelled to the point of hating them all. He might have told her Jenny's name. He couldn't remember.

She'd only met his folks once or twice. His brother once. She hadn't been anything official in his life.

He'd never been the kind of guy to bring a girl home for holidays.

And Callie hadn't been anything he'd wanted to share. His mother would've been all over her—taking away the little time he and Callie had alone together…. He looked at her but had to look away. Now that he remembered, he couldn't see her without seeing the makeup. The bouffant hair and body glitter. The stars stuck to her nipples—the only covering on her breasts.

Standing, Frank gathered the dishes. He had to get them out of there before the smell of the eggs made him puke.

Callie said she thought he'd known about her past all along. But was she being honest with him? How could she have slid that body up his like she'd slid it up a pole in front of hundreds of horny, hollering men, bending down so they could shove bills in her G-string? How could she do that without talking to him about what she'd done? Could she really believe he'd have touched her without first clearing the air?

Scrubbing the dishes as though they had blood on them, he wanted to hate her. She'd deceived him. She'd let him fall in love with a woman he could not possibly spend his life with.

"It's all right, Frank. I'll get those." Her soft voice behind him held no rancor. Or apology, either.

He would finish what he'd started. Because that was what he did. Who he was. Because he wasn't ready to turn around and face her. He loved her. Even now, he loved her. He didn't want to hurt her. And didn't have a plan. Or the slightest idea of what to do.

The only thing that made sense to him at the moment was to find a place where he could curl in on himself and shed the grief that was overtaking him.

At her hand on his shoulder, he flinched. An automatic reaction he instantly regretted. More so when, without a word, she dropped her hand.

Eventually she said, "I'm going to get dressed. She left him in the kitchen, his back still to her.

 **((()))**

"You're still here." Dressed in her favorite black skirt with matching black-trimmed gold jacket, Callie walked out to her living room in three-inch heeled black pumps, expecting to be alone.

"Of course I'm still here. You didn't think I'd just walk out, did you?"

She might have hoped. She'd taken an extra-long time getting ready.

She didn't feel like sitting. And couldn't stand around in heels for hours on end. Which was why she rarely wore them. Or the suit. She didn't spend too many days only in the office. And her more serviceable slacks and jackets and low heels were better suited to the types of house calls she made on a daily basis.

"You did, didn't you? You thought I'd just walk out on you."

Frank had donned one of the tweed sport coats he wore to work with his dress slacks. He'd put on the gray-and brown silk tie she'd bought him the previous Christmas.

He was sitting, knees apart, in the middle of her couch. His hands rested on his knees, as if he had no idea what to do with them. If she hadn't been breaking apart inside, she'd have felt sorry for him.

"I think it would be easier on both of us if you went," she said. It wasn't like they were fighting over anything that could be fixed. She had a history. Frank didn't approve of it.

And she didn't blame him.

"Really, Frank, it's fine. I'm fine." Or she would be.

As soon as she had a chance to pick up her pieces and put them back together.

"You're a good girl, Callie. Don't ever forget that."

"You said your mother lives in Florida with her twin sister. Your aunt. You go visit them."

"That's right." She'd asked Frank to come along a couple of times, but he'd always been too busy at work. The man hadn't taken a vacation in more than two years.

"Was she already down there, when you…danced?"

He couldn't look her in the eye. And she felt dirty, in her own home. She wanted him gone.

"No."

"Did she know?"

If she hadn't spent years loving the man, she'd have shown him the door. She didn't have to put herself through this.

But he'd just told her he loved her. He'd been sincere. And this was Frank. Her knight in shining armor. She didn't love him any less because he didn't want to marry a stripper.

"I'm not sure," she told him honestly, finally sitting, legs together and hands clasped, in the armchair perpendicular to the couch where he sat. The couch her father had spent his last weeks on. "I think she did. I'm pretty certain she knew. But we never discussed it."

His eyes rose quickly, meeting hers briefly, and then he looked away. "She never asked?"

Mom had given her the respect of not bringing that part of her life into their home. Into their relationship.

And maybe that was why she'd been so ready to believe that Frank had done the same.

"My father was dying," she said. "He was on medications that had caused kidney failure. He needed a transplant. He'd been on a donor list and a kidney was supposed to be available soon, but his insurance wouldn't pay for the surgery and dialysis wasn't enough anymore. My aunt had gone through a horrible divorce and was living with us while she tried to get herself out of debt. She worked full-time as a receptionist at a PR firm. Mom had to be home to care for my dad.

I was fresh out of high school. Still flipping burgers for minimum wage until Dad's health improved and I could go to college. The year before, I'd met a girl who came into the restaurant. She'd told me she knew how I could make a hell of a lot more money. I'd told Mom about it at the time and we both shuddered and had an uneasy laugh." Callie spoke to the carpet. And the drapes. Powered by the ocean tumbling along in the distance, she took the high road. Did the decent thing. And gave Frank his due.

"When I heard about the insurance company's refusal to pay for Dad's surgery, I went to The Strip Joint and found the girl—a woman named Sheila who got a cut for every girl she brought in. But I didn't know that at the time. She put in a word for me and I was onstage the very next night. No time for second thoughts. That first night I made enough money to pay for an initial visit with the transplant surgeon."

"And your parents never asked where the money came from?"

"No. Dad was too sick and drugged, at that point, to know what was going on. Mom told him an insurance payment had come through."

And she'd cried every single time Callie came home with more money. She'd hugged her. Coddled her. Kept her close. And told her, every single day, that she was a good girl.

"You said your dad died many years ago."

"That's right. About six weeks after The Strip Joint was busted."

"Because he couldn't afford the surgery?" Frank stared her straight in the face. "I'm responsible for your father's death?"

"Of course not. A kidney didn't become available in time."

"But if it had, you couldn't have paid for the surgery without the…job."

"That's right."

"But they left your father on the list?"

No, they hadn't.

But she'd given Frank his due. And she'd had enough.

"It's a moot point. He clearly didn't have the strength to make it through the transplant or to tolerate the rejection drugs that would've come after."

And if she'd known that going in, she still would have tried. She still would have danced every night of the week if it meant there was even a minute chance that she could have kept her father alive.

"You loved him." Frank hadn't moved, but his eyes were glistening.

"Yeah. He was a great man. A great dad." She smiled. "I had a blessed childhood."

"Which is why you work so hard to help other children know even some of that same happiness."

Shrugging, Callie stared at her hands. And then at the door. She'd quit analyzing the whys of her life, of her choices, a long time ago. She got up every day and did what she had to do so she could look herself in the mirror.

 **((()))**

He should tell her about Jenny. Tell her why he'd busted The Strip Joint and taken away her only hope of seeing her father recover. Obviously Callie would have known his sister. They'd been onstage together the night of the arrest.

Callie had just poured out her deepest secrets to him and Frank sat there, holding his silence. He could look at her now and see the woman he'd loved.

The woman he'd almost lost two days before.

But things were different. Something was happening. Inside him, or between them, he didn't know. He just knew he had to get out of there.

He offered to take her to work, where her car had been parked since the storm.

She accepted.

And they talked about the sunshine and the calm during the drive, finding it odd that things could look so peaceful and normal after the nightmare storm. They talked about the vagaries of Mother Nature. And when he pulled up in front of her office, she jumped out, thanking him for the ride before he could decide whether or not to kiss her goodbye.

She didn't expect to hear from him anytime soon. He could tell.

"I'll call you," he said just before the door shut, but he wasn't sure she heard him. He wasn't sure he'd wanted her to.

Neither was he sure why he called Ramsey's cell and told the younger man to let their Captain know he wouldn't be in that day. Or why he drove to the airport and boarded a plane to Atlantic City. He didn't tell anyone, not even Ramsey Miller, what he was doing.

Mostly because he had no idea what he'd tell them. He had no idea what he was doing.

The few hours' wait to get on a plane, the flight and cab ride didn't give him any clarity. He gave the last address he had for his baby sister, not convinced she'd let him in. She'd made it clear when she'd left home years before that she didn't want to see any of them again. She wasn't like them, she'd said. She didn't fit into their cozy family unit.

And she was done with their interference.

What she did with her life was her own business. And she was going to do it on her own. Not with help from her parents, who wanted her to be what they thought she should be. Or from her interfering cop brother.

She'd been in touch with Frank's younger brother. Had him up to Atlantic City more than once. Joe let things slip now and then. But the family didn't mention Jenny much. Talk of her hurt too badly.

It especially hurt Frank. Jenny hated him most of all. She wasn't going to answer her door to him. Didn't matter that it was three-thirty in the afternoon. He'd made this trip half a dozen times. In the morning. The evening. She was never home—or hadn't wanted him to think she was. He'd leave a note and catch the next flight back to Bayport. That should get him home by early evening and he could still put in a few hours at the office before heading home.

Before Callie turned in and he'd have to decide whether or not he was going to call and see how she was doing.

Leaving the cabbie out front with the meter running, he knocked on the door of Jenny's apartment. And stood there speechless when she opened it. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with her long blond hair hanging over her shoulders, she wore no makeup, no jewelry. She looked like a grown-up version of the little girl who used to tag along behind him and drive him nuts with her questions.

He'd never questioned her adoration.

Until he'd lost it.

"What's wrong?" Her question wasn't filled with the resentment he'd come to expect from her. But it wasn't all that friendly, either. "Did something happen to Mom or Dad?"

Yesterday his reply would have been along the lines of "Little you care." Frank choked on emotion he didn't quite understand.

"I love you, Jen."

Frowning, she hugged the door. "What's wrong?" she asked again, fear entering her voice.

"I…nothing. Mom and Dad, everyone else, we're all fine. I just…need to talk to you. Can I come in?"

Standing back, she said, "Sure. I guess. I just got home from…work."

She still looked eighteen to him. Taking a minute to pay off the cabbie and send him on his way, Frank strode quickly back up before Jenny changed her mind and closed her door.

She led him into a small but clean and nicely furnished living room. Classical music was playing. The computer was on at a desk in the corner. She offered him something to drink. Freshly squeezed juice. He turned her down. Didn't need anything else to choke on.

And then they were sitting, Frank on her couch, she with both feet curled up beneath her in an armchair. Too similar to the situation he'd found himself in that morning in Callie's apartment.

"What's up?"

He wrung his hands. "I'm not sure what to say."

"Why'd you come, then?"

"I don't know."

She could have stood. Told him she didn't have time for this. Instead she just sat there, watching him. Probably glad that she could finally see him squirm. Funny, it didn't feel that way.

"I…the thing is…"

She waited. He sweated.

"People don't just change for no reason. You don't go from being a Goody Two-shoes, who likes to read and study and tag along behind her older brother, to being a rebellious malcontent for no apparent reason."

She nodded. And didn't look interested in his opinion.

He didn't blame her.

"Sometimes you feel forced to do something. You must not understand why, but you do it, even if you don't want to."

She nodded again. He wasn't completely certain he had her attention.

"Jen? I need to know why you did it."

She didn't ask what he meant. Didn't do anything but stare at him. "You never asked." Her voice was tiny, that of a little girl, when she finally answered. "I thought you, of all people, would ask. Joe did."

He could hear tears in her voice. And died his second death that day.

"I'm here now."

She nodded one more time. And when she swallowed, he saw the way her neck moved, with difficulty, like she was having trouble getting anything past her throat.

"Remember the night I snuck out to see Dwayne Hodges?"

"The guy mom and dad had forbidden you to date."

"Right."

Frank's heart sank. He wasn't sure he could take what he'd come asking for. Wasn't sure that he was up for it twice in one day.

And he thought of the two women he loved most in the world. His baby sister. And the woman he'd been taking for granted for the past two years. And he knew he owed them both. Listening. Understanding. Loving. And so much more.

((()))

Callie went to work. The first order of business was checking up on Damon and Kayla. They were both well. Second, she made a call. There was a couple she knew—they'd lost a son in an accident at the beach—who'd been approved for foster care but had not yet had children placed in their home. They'd been planning to start out with one. They were open to taking two. And were going, that day, to get Damon enrolled in the elementary school closest to their house.

She spent the next several hours getting caught up on casework. Reports. Setting appointments for the following week. She worked until everyone else had gone home for the night. And when her head began to throb, she left.

It felt good to get in her own car again. To drive herself out of the parking lot toward home. The detour to Chloe's Restaurant felt good, too. She'd lost the man who was going to take her there, but that didn't mean she couldn't go herself.

With a take-out seafood salad to go on the seat beside her, she headed home. To eat. Rest. Regroup. And maybe think about taking a trip to Florida over Thanksgiving. The only thing that sounded remotely comforting at the moment was a nice long cry on her mother's shoulder.

Not that she'd actually let herself do that. She couldn't tell her mother that she'd lost the love of her life because of the choices they'd made in the past. Callie's choice to exploit her body and her mother's choice to turn a blind eye.

She'd been a fool to think that Frank had known who she was. A fool to think any decent man would want to marry a woman who'd bared it all for more men than she could count. Who'd let them shove their fingers against her pubic hair as they left their dollars behind.

She'd lost her right to—

His car was in her driveway. Breath coming in small bursts, Callie parked out front. She wasn't going to block him in.

Leaving the salad on the seat, she made her way up to his car, her knees weak with longing. She needed him. There was nothing wrong with that.

And nothing wrong with her love, either.

She glanced in the driver's side window and saw that the car was empty.

She raised her eyes in the moonlit night. Her front door was closed, the blinds drawn—as they'd been when she'd left that morning.

Frank had a key. He'd never used it without her permission.

He was probably getting his things, hoping to be gone before she got back. Intending to return to her car, to drive to the cliff she loved and eat her salad in peace before returning to reclaim her home as her own, Callie moved up the walk instead.

As pathetic as it was, she wanted to see him. To talk to him.

Unlocking the front door, she let herself in, dropped her purse on the table by the door, just as she always did. And listened. She noticed that lights were on in the back of the house.

If Frank was packing, he was doing so without making a sound.

And then she heard voices. Two of them. Frank's. And a woman's.

He'd brought another woman to her home? He had his own place, for God's sake! And then it dawned on her. He thought she was sexually promiscuous. She'd received her share of disrespectful offers during her time onstage. But if Frank thought for one second she'd…

They were in her kitchen.

She was seeking the strength to confront them, to get them out of her space, to look Frank in the eye and tell him he had to go, when they walked in.

"Callie! Sweetheart. I didn't hear you. I wanted to call, I know I should have, but Jenny said…"

Callie saw Frank, but she was staring at the sweet, normal looking woman standing just behind him.

"Jenny?" She smiled, without a thought beyond the moment. "It's so great to see you!"

With a grin, Jenny flew toward her, wrapping her in the hug she'd been craving from her mother minutes before. "I can't believe you're here! The timing—it's incredible. And you've met Frank…"

She frowned. "How…why…" She hadn't seen or heard from Jenny since the night of the arrest. How could she suddenly be showing up at her door, on this of all days?

They were both watching her, Jenny with a tentative smile, Frank looking sick to his stomach.

"What's going on?"

"The lout who screwed up this morning is my brother." Jenny's words made sense, but they didn't compute. "It's his fault we all got busted and went to jail. I'm here to do anything I can to assuage any pain he caused you."

"Frank's your brother?"

Jenny nodded. "My oldest brother."

"The one you'd said deserted you." She and Jenny had become friends during their months on the stage. They were the only two who hadn't been willing to make more money for that pimp, Sheila.

"Yeah."

"The one who wouldn't help you after you took one little pill that guy—the guy you had a crush on—gave you, and you ended up unable to defend yourself when he and his friends date-raped you." When she'd heard the story she'd not only detested the boys who'd hurt her friend, she'd also hated the brother who hadn't rescued his little sister. She looked at Frank and then back at Jenny. "The brother who wouldn't believe you."

"She left out one detail when she told you what led her down the path that ultimately ended up at The Strip Joint," Frank said, his voice sounding normal for the first time since he'd asked her to marry him.

Jenny had been her only real friend in the place—the one bright spot during the most horrendous months of her life. Like Callie, Jenny had been courted by Sheila and, like Callie, had only performed onstage. But all the women Callie had met during those long nights had a story, a reason they'd felt forced to sell their bodies. Some really were forced—by pimps like Sheila who got a commission from them for services rendered in the back rooms of the club. Some had been sexually abused at a young age. A couple thought they were on their way to stardom.

And Jenny—she'd been so ashamed of herself for trusting a guy her parents despised, for allowing him to talk her into lying to her family, talk her into taking a roofie—she'd thought none of them would ever forgive her for what had happened as a result. And that's when the creep had started blackmailing her. Threatening that if she didn't do what he said, he'd tell everyone what she'd done. Eventually she'd gotten in too deep. She'd hated herself. And thought working in The Strip Joint would serve two purposes. It would show her family, very clearly, what kind of girl she was, which freed her from the creep. And it would help her make enough money to get out of town as quickly as possible.

"What detail did you leave out?" Callie asked now, holding Jenny's hand as she gave her friend another once-over.

"She failed to tell me what had happened," Frank said. "She assumed I wouldn't believe her and didn't give me a chance to prove her right. Or wrong."

Callie's gaze shot back to Jenny. "You didn't tell him?"

"No."

"And I didn't ask," Frank said, coming closer to the two of them. "I should have asked."

With her free hand, Jenny grabbed Frank's. Standing between them, holding their hands, she told Callie, "He flew to Atlantic City today to ask," Jenny said softly, tearing up as she looked from one to the other. "All these years, I needed him to ask."

And for the first time all day, Callie's heart started to thaw. She glanced at Jenny, and then at Frank.

"Because of you," he said. "You opened my eyes to my own blindness. Just like you've been doing for so long. I don't deserve you, Callie, but I desperately want you to be my wife. I'm less of a man without you. Please say you'll marry me."

"Don't, if you don't want to." Jenny's words were just as compelling and Callie looked over at her. "I told him I wouldn't help _him._ I'm here for you. If you really love him like he thinks you do, fine. But after the way he treated you this morning, I just came along to make sure you're okay. You didn't deserve what he did, Callie. You were the best friend I ever had. All those nights on break when you'd tell me I could be whatever I wanted to be, and the only opinion that really mattered was my own. You said I knew inside what kind of girl I was and that I was allowed to be her. And then Frank tells me what he did and I just…" She paused. "My heart broke for you…"

She'd said all those things? She guessed she had. And she'd believed them, too. At least for Jenny.

Squeezing Jenny's hand, Callie turned back to Frank. "I am what I am."

"A woman who sacrificed her life to save her father's," Frank said. "You're a woman who lives every single day true to the person you are inside. I would be honored if you'd be my wife."

The words were a little corny. But Callie understood that Frank was new to the whole love thing. She recognized his sincerity.

Trying not to cry, needing a moment to catch her breath, she turned back to Jenny. "I can't believe you're his sister."

"Why do you think the joint was busted like it was? Frank was on a mission to save me from myself."

"And instead, she saved herself," Frank said, smiling at the pretty woman. "All these years Jenny made Joe, our brother, keep her secret from me. I was led to believe she was dealing cards in Atlantic City when, in fact, she only did that long enough to put herself through school and get a degree in education. Apparently the whole family was invited to her college graduation as long as I wasn't told."

Jenny winced. "Not one of my better moments. More like a bitter one. The family begged me to relent, to include Frank—but I couldn't. I needed him to see _me._ To just know that something bad had happened or I would never have been in that place."

"You needed him to have faith in you," Callie said softly.

"I still had some growing up to do," Jenny told her.

"Frank came to see me several times, but I was either in college classes or teaching, and I never responded to the notes he left." And then she added, "I spend my days with third-graders now."

"Is there someone special in your life?"

"Not yet. I didn't think any decent guy would want me. But seeing you two gives me hope." She looked between the two of them again. "At least, I think it does. Callie, do you want this idiot to be your husband?"

"Yeah." Callie couldn't hold back any longer. "More than anything on earth."

"Then I now pronounce you engaged." Taking their hands, she joined them together, extracting her own.

Callie was hardly aware when her friend backed away. She looked into Frank's eyes and saw her own redemption. But more than that, she saw the redemption he found in her. He needed her as much as she needed him. And that was when Callie Shaw finally knew personal peace.

"I think I'm going to kiss the bride," Frank murmured as his mouth came closer.

"Think I'll go surprise the folks," Jenny called from a distance. "They've been asking me to come home for years, but I was too afraid of running into Frank… ."

Jenny's voice faded as Callie got lost in the love she knew would sustain her for the rest of her life. A good girl's just reward.


End file.
